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Good enough, Day 6: Too darn hot

Summer is a crazy thing here in L.A. Just when it starts being over everywhere else—right around Labor Day here in the U.S.—it descends on us like a stinky devil in the night.

I used to fight the weather like crazy, crouched in wet bathing suits under strategically-placed fans in the dark, or rushing off to this or that air-conditioned space and forcing the words out of myself. I still resist it almost reflexively, as I do other kinds of reality, like how many things can comfortably fit in the bucket of time I’m given each morning, or how even how long it takes to do one thing well.

Here is what progress looks like: starting to flip out in the coffee shop because you don’t have the right program on this computer, because you can’t access the photos you have on the drive at home, because LOUD TYPING from the madly prolific writer at the adjacent table. And then somehow, because you have been practicing, allowing yourself to close your eyes, to take a series of deep breaths, to ask yourself a few questions you have learned that help bring you out of your crazy head and back into a your slightly overheated, definitely tired body. You sip your iced tea, you put on some headphones and listen to pretty rain and harmonic sounds, you do the next thing you’re able to do.

I had great ambitions for today: a meeting on a new project I’ve been working on for a while with a dear friend, but that we’ve had to put on hold; some work on a personal project of my own; some (god help me) “minor” site coding, and of course, an elaborate update for this series. I scaled them back to lunch with another dear friend, a short post about nothing and swapping out my old face for my new one in the sidebar.

Right now, I’m pretty happy with the way everything turned out. And I ain’t talking about the sidebar, either.

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5 comments

Hi,
Just want to say thank you for your blog and your videos and your messages and your baldness. Your stuff always makes me laugh out loud, and believe me, with 3 children under 6, two of them being 18-month-old twins, this does not happen often (ever?). The line that cracked me up was this: I scaled them back to lunch with a dear friend, a post about nothing, and swapping out….”

Rich and famous indeed! Loved sharing the immensity of your day. Enjoyed second person. That would be me! Thanks for your honesty and perseverance. And insight, too.
So wonderful to have you back so often. Missed you like crazy.

I love this! I had the same intentions and outcomes today. Thought I would get a productive start on the day–only to be set back by an excruciating headache. Nonetheless, thanks for this post and for sharing that its okay sometimes to take a step back to do what you can with what is available!